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RERcontributor Pastor Stephen Broden, a veteran political activists and member of the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC), has worked on attracting more black voters into the Republican Party for years. His work has been at the genuine grassroots level, it has been national, and his campaigns have yielded national media attention.

RagingElephantsRadio.com focused on the need for black engagement by the Texas GOP for an entire week in the month of May. For his contribution to the week-long conversation, Broden began his assessment of the black engagement by the Republican Party as “lacking”.

Whatever engagement has been done by the GOP, Broden gave it this characterization. “It certainly has not been demonstrative of our philosophies and ideas that drive us a party. We have the best message in town.”

Broden quoted a sentence from his new book, Pawns of Change, “The biggest, colossal mistake ever made is the GOP not organizing an effort to enter into the (black) community.”

Broden is known for his optimism and is bullish on what the Texas GOP will soon do. “That mistake is still evident today. But, I think more now than ever before there’s a golden opportunity. The window is open like it’s never been before. We must seize that moment. And, move into the community with a coherent, cognitive message that will resonate with people that are looking right now for an alternative.”

Because of the lack of attention to the black voter, Broden sees the image, message, and branding of the Republican Party being controlled by the opposition party and the nation’s leftist factions.

Broden has been conducting conversations with Texas GOP Chairman James Dickey about how to proceed with the igniting of an engagement program in the event he’s elected to a full term at the 2018 Texas GOP State Convention.

A collection of veteran black Republican activists are constructing a skeletal plan to present to black convention delegates at a scheduled meet and greet at the state convention on Thursday.

In this RERhotclip, Broden goes into greater detail on his vision of what black engagement would look like if directed by the state party. He puts a heavy emphasis on training of both activists, and new converts to the party. A goal of the convention meet and greet is to recruit more black delegates into the role of activists and grow a larger circle of cooperating associates from around Texas.

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Texas Young Republicans represent the entire spectrum of the Republican Party. Many Republican organizations attract only certain segments within the party. Among these are the Tea Party wing, the liberty wing, the moderate wing. The Texas Young Republicans pull from all of those groups and find a way to work together.Sometimes finding agreement on specific policy can be tough. While we agree on all or most of the principles of the party, there can be a lot of differences on how to enact those principles into policy. The one area where there tends to be overwhelming support and like-mindedness is criminal justice reform. These policies tend to find the greatest support from a broad segment of our membership.That is why this year, numerous Texas Young Republicans have chosen to lead the way by sponsoring a slate of planks for the Republican Party of Texas Platform. We hope to work with the Party to create a segment in the platform to tackle these issues and work with the legislature to enact them into law.In total, 16 suggested planks were submitted by Texas Young Republicans across the state at their precinct conventions after the primary. Some passed the entire packet while others picked certain planks to submit to the RPT Convention. These planks are currently being evaluated in the platform process.

Protect citizen’s location data by requiring a warrant based on probable cause for governments to request access except in the case of an immediate, life threatening situation.

Abolish the Texas Driver Responsibility Program.

Call for the disclosure of how much military grade material local law enforcement receives and require a local governing body to approve requests made for such material.

Civil penalty for small amounts of marijuana.

Expand the Texas Compassionate Use Act for medical cannabis and reduce excessive licensing fees for dispensaries.

The Texas Young Republicans look forward to continuing to push these ideas for reform with the Republican Party of Texas. If all of these ideas were placed into law we would see our prison population cut in half. Tax payers would save millions and we would all be a little safer. We are proud to be a part of a big tent party where ideas start at the bottom from people like us. Whether it is through platform changes, events like our Millennial Caucus at the Republican Party of Texas convention in June, or just one on one conversations, we are proud to shape the future of the GOP.Written by Jason Vaughn, Texas Young Republican SREC Liaison.Contact:Brian BodineChairman, Texas Young Republican Federation(214) 642-2114chairman@texasyr.gop

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The hard-charging Dr. Laura Pressley is running for the position of committeewoman on the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) for Senatorial District 14 in Travis County. The caucuses of delegates to elect their SREC representatives will be held at the Texas GOP State Convention in San Antonio this Thursday through Saturday.

Pressley stormed into prominence within the liberty movement after a failed bid for the Austin City Council in 2015. She launched an investigation into the results of both the general election and runoff and detected statistical anomalies that pointed to an extremely suspicious outcome. Pressley strongly feels that the voting machines were tampered with and believes she’s uncovered strong evidence supporting her claims.

Pressley is the first plaintiff in an election fraud case to progress through the Texas court system to the highest level. The backlash she’s received for her efforts from election insiders has been notably excessive, especially from Harris and Travis counties. Yet, she’s continued to spread the knowledge of her findings to organizations and public officials in every corner of the state and has become a celebrated figure within the Texas liberty movement’s grassroots.

At the 2016 Texas GOP State Convention in Dallas, Pressley led the effort to include the current language on election security and integrity of the state party platform. Now, she is running for a SREC position to bring the battle for trustworthy elections to the board of directors of the party.

In an interview with RagingElephantsRadio.com, Dr. Pressley shared the compelling force for her desire to serve on the SREC. “It all boils down to election integrity. I’m not apologetic about this. But, if we don’t have the ballot box, if the ballot box is not honest and truthful and fair, we don’t have anything else in this state or in this country.”

What Pressley wants to bring to the SREC is not surprising. “The election integrity, honest and fair elections, are the number one issues that I’m going to bring to the table. We have so many other SREC members that focus on other issues from across the state. We don’t have anybody on the SREC with my type of passion, my expertise, what I know goes on in multiple counties across the state with the electronic voting corruption. That’s the expertise I’m going to bring to the table.”

In this RERhotclip, Dr. Pressley freely expresses her thoughts on party direction and her commitment to a full range of challenges.

Pressley applauds Texas GOP Chairman James Dickey for creating an elections integrity committee on the SREC. After attending the committee meetings, she feels it lacks the detailed training to be thoroughly effective.

On other issues facing the state party, Pressley is supportive of creating a credible engagement program to build the party’s voting base through racial diversity with a heavy concentration in the black community.

On the issue of school choice, Dr. Pressley doesn’t like the practice of monetizing the children through the gathering of their personal data, and education standards being directed from the nation’s capital.

A familiar presence in the halls of the Pink Dome, Pressley intends to use her relationships with legislators to more broadly advocate for the platform principles and legislative priorities, taking a page from the record of Chairman James Dickey that she supports for a full term.

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Alan Vera chairs the Harris County GOP Ballot Security Committee. He’s part of a strange coalition of Harris County officeholders and party insiders that are fighting hard against the return of Texas to election conduct that is in compliance with the Texas Constitution and Texas Election Code.

Vera is adamantly against a paper backup system being implemented in the Texas voting process. On February 22, 2018, Vera testified before the Texas Senate Select Committee on Election Security chaired by State Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola RER89). After laying out a disturbing case of voting problems in Texas, Vera saved his opposition to the paper backup system for the conclusion of his testimony.

In a remarkable statement of contradiction, Vera in one breath states that electronic voting machines cannot be hacked, then admits that the voting system is “vulnerable” moments later.

Vera’s statewide advocacy against the paper backup system supported by the Texas GOP Platform has drawn the ire of election integrity hawks. Several Texas liberty movement influencers admonished Texas GOP Chairman James Dickey to not place Vera on any committee dealing with election integrity after Dickey named Vera to the 2018 state convention’s Platform Committee. Namely JoAnn Fleming of Tyler, Ray Myers of Kaufman, and Dr. Laura Pressley of Austin expressed their sentiment against Vera to Chairman Dickey and Platform Committee Chair Mark Ramsey of Houston.

Dickey and Ramsey did not heed the warnings of the Fleming, Myers, Pressley and others. Instead a committee shell game was played. Resolutions dealing with election integrity were placed in the convention’s Government and Foreign Relations Sub-Committee instead of the State Affairs Sub-Committee. Vera has been appointed to the Government and Foreign Relations Sub-Committee.

The election integrity hawks, led by Dr. Pressley, believe that Vera’s essential role for the 2018 state convention is to reverse or remove the language in the Texas GOP Platform calling for a more robust and reliable voting system to be put into place.

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R.W. Bray is the last person to lead a black engagement operation for the Texas GOP. He was appointed to the position by former Chairman Tom Mechler. But, left the position with the election of James Dickey in 2017.

“The bandwidth, and the commitment, just truly wasn’t there that we need. And, that’s why I stepped down from the position”, said Bray.

For a decade, now, several black Republican leaders in Texas have been attempting to persuade the GOP powers to make enlarging the party’s voting through racial diversity a priority. Each Texas GOP administration has failed to do so.

Bray lamented the lack of budget and human resources dedicated to the objective, even under Mechler, who at least made a tepid attempt at fulfilling the promise of aggressive black engagement by the Texas GOP.

Bray credits Apostle Claver T. Kamau-Imani and RagingElephants.org, the predecessor to RagingElephantsRadio.com, with being the catalyst and example for him to get active in recruiting blacks to the Republican Party.

“They (party leaders) don’t know how to get in there (the black community) and engage. And, as I traveled the state I spoke to many chairman, many chairman, that had great ideas, many chairman that had great plans. But, they didn’t know how to actually execute it. They didn’t know how to get in there and make it happen. And many of them have friends on the African-American side.”

In this RERhoctclip featuring R.W. Bray, he goes into great detail about his experience on the inside of the Texas GOP and its failure to make inroads in the black community.

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Terri Leo has been involved in Texas GOP politics for nearly 40 years. She is now running for the State Republican Executive Committee to represent Senatorial District 7 in Harris County. The election will be held at the state party convention in San Antonio that begins on July 14.

For Leo, her political activism started as a prayer and action leader for Concerned Women for America in her living room that was soon out grown. Her current poltical pinnacle was in 1996 and her run for State Board of Education (SBOE). Leo successfully served for 10 years also having held the Vice Chair position.

Leo points to her deep resume when speaking about her qualities to hold the SREC committee woman position. “I feel like I’m very uniquely suited for the SREC in that I’ve had a lot of committee experience – bringing people that are in disagreement together, while at the same time holding very strong to my values. But, also being able to go out to lunch with people after the vote is said and done. And, work together on those things that we can. I think that’s a very important quality to have as an SREC member, to have the temperament to do so.”

What triggered her to run for the SREC was a Facebook post by her election opponent. In her RERvideo interview, Leo read the post that encourages Republican voters to under vote certain races in November to spite GOP nominees that were victorious in the 2018 primary election. Although they were the election winners, Leo’s opponent calls them “losers” in the Facebook post.

Leo makes the point that she supports every GOP candidate that advances from the primary election to the general election regardless of whether she previously supported them, or not. Leo claims that once she called her opponent out, she changed her position to advocate for GOP straight-ticket voting.

Leo believes that her conservative credentials are bolstered by the candidates she has helped to recruit for the SBOE. The list includes conservative board members Donna Bahorich, Barbara Cargill, and Cynthia Dunbar.

When it comes to challenges facing the Texas GOP, Leo addressed the lack of diversity in the voting base. “I think we’re turning off a lot of younger voters as well as voters of color. I think that those are two huge groups that if we don’t do a better job in recruiting, in fostering, and speaking to, in going to some of their clubs, helping to support some of their ideas, I think we’re going to see the Democrats take over.”

During the interview, Leo took a hard stance against GOP officeholders that haven’t supported the party’s platforms. When it was suggested that legislators and executives have neglected the platform and legislative priorities, Leo said, “I would go even further to say not that they were neglected (the platforms and priorities), but there were bills that were oppositional – that we had Republicans behind that were oppositional to our platform.

“You can use the bully pulpit of office as an SREC member to go lobby when the legislature is in session, and bring that information back to the voters, to clearly spell out for elected officials ‘this is what we’ve elected you to do, this is what you’ve promised to do’.”

Leo also believes that the SREC should have a strong influence with the party chair on which incumbents are going to receive financial support from the party.

When it comes to some of the more recent convention controversies, Leo was somewhat lenient on allowing neo-morality advocates to participate in the state party convention by securing vending booths. But, she was firm against abortion advocates being allowed to participate.